Eye of the Storm
by mcwheaty
Summary: Mother Nature has some tricks up her sleeve, and residents of the northeast US have no idea what's in store.
1. Chapter 1

Am I even allowed to publish a story? Let's find out-

* * *

She'd fought countless bad guys, trained for literal years, even escaped a crocodile - and 23-year-old Amy Cahill got taken out by a patch of _ice_.

The twelve-pack of Mountain Dew busted open on the patio. Biscuit rolls dropped and popped. Mac and cheese boxes went flying and showered down around her as her back hit concrete. For a second, she couldn't breathe, and gaped up at the overcast sky in shock. From the second floor of the Cahill mansion, laughter pierced the frigid air.

"Should I place an order with Life Alert?"

Amy wheezed and finally gathered the energy to sit up. Melting ice seeped through the bottom of her jeans and clung to her hair. She could already feel the soreness of her muscles set in, yet nothing quite annoyed her like Dan's obnoxious cackling. With a groan, she slowly got to her feet and recovered their weekly groceries before entering their home.

Dan's heavy footsteps reverberated from the staircase as he rushed down to the main floor, grinning from ear to ear. "I've seen you kick _major_ ass, but you're still the world's biggest klutz."

"Shut up, loser - you're lucky I even bought food in this weather," Amy muttered. She emptied the grocery bags (reusable, of course) and started putting things away. "This winter storm might turn into a blizzard."

Dan rolled his eyes and stole a package of Oreos once his sister had her back turned. "Those weather guys on TV are wrong 98% of the time," he retorted, stuffing the cookies in his pants pocket. "I guarantee we'll get 3 inches, tops."

"Since when did you become a meteorologist?"

"I'll bet you TEN whole dollars that this storm's gonna come and go before you even notice," Dan challenged smugly. "It's been too warm lately to _randomly_ blizzard like that."

[Narrator: It's a good thing Dan was _not_, in fact, a meteorologist. No one would have expected how drastically things were about to change.]


	2. Chapter 2

Dan's chin dropped onto his flattened hands, elbows resting on the back of the couch as he perched in front of the window. The scenery outside was completely muted of color. Everything he could see was white - the leafless skeletons of white oaks in the backyard, the thick pool cover sagging under the weight of snow, the little blue shed that currently housed his dirt bikes - and the desolate appearance of the outdoors was super depressing.

He was already so bored, AND he'd lost ten bucks to his dork sibling.

Dan slid dramatically to the couch cushions and let out an audible whine. "This freaking _sucks_."

From a recliner not too far from him, Amy turned a page of her book with a smile and hardly acknowledged his plea for attention.

His eyes narrowed as the gears in his brain started generating ideas. If they were going to be trapped in the mansion for as long as the frumpy weather man predicted, Dan would need to manufacture his own entertainment.

[Narrator: This was not one of his best ideas.]

After ditching the library and it's life-draining atmosphere, Dan wandered the halls. He kept his voice low as he called for his furry comrade. [His "purrtner in crime", if you will.] At this time of day, the Egyptian Mau was probably looking for a warm place to bask. In fact, Dan eventually found the cat snoozing on top of a floor vent.

He grinned. "Hey, Sally. You up for a game?"


	3. Chapter 3

There was a time where Amy thought her experienced, give-em-hell training would rub off on her brother - maybe instill a little maturity in his adolescent brain, or at least get those neurons to synapse in a way that let him know that _throwing the cat was not okay_.

More specifically, she'd hoped he would know better than to drop him from a lofted ceiling vent and expect him to land on all fours.

"GOD DAM- DAN-" she muffled as the beautiful pages of her book disappeared amid a mass of cat hair landing in her face at terminal velocity. "What the HELL - "

If she weren't so annoyed, the insane cackles that echoed through the home would have been downright creepy.

"Right on target!"

Everything happened all at once - Saladin's fluffy mass collided with Amy's face, her reading glasses flew an impressive distance away, tatters of paper exploded out of the book covers as the cat scrambled for safety, and the eldest Cahill sibling's cheeks turned as red as the trickle of blood left under her eye from a single stray claw. She barely contained her rage as she shoved the ruined book off of her lap and leapt to her feet; even Saladin scurried off at her abrupt display of anger. Her gaze shot up to the ceiling where her brother's impish grin peered down at her from the open vent.

"How did you even get _up there_?"

"Ninjas never reveal their secrets!" Dan proclaimed, flashing a bright red carabiner in his hand. It was then that Amy noticed the ridiculous makeshift parachute that their poor cat had been forced to adorn. The Mau in question had already lost interest in the two siblings and was instead focused on freeing himself from the mess of yarn and paper towels. Her jaded gaze, filled with frustration, returned to the world's worst ninja as she primed herself for the most epic scolding in the history of sisterhood, when a low creak in the supports above made them both freeze.

[Narrator: Suddenly, the game didn't seem like such a good idea to Dan.]

* * *

"Oh...my...God."

She didn't know how it was possible. That kid was so scrawny, she was almost surprised his weight had an impact. Still, she watched in horror as the loud crash settled, the recliner she'd _just_ been curled in disappeared behind a wall of metal and sheetrock, and bits of paint and insulation fluttered down to every surface in the vicinity. To her relief, a shaggy blond head popped out of the debris. Despite the hacking sound of Dan losing a lung, he seemed remarkably unscathed.

[Narrator: Amy couldn't say the same for the library.]

Then she noticed a frigid wind swirl through the shattered window, blowing snow directly into the room, and her heart felt like it was going to trade places with her diaphragm. She could not believe what her brother had done.

[Narrator: Neither could Saladin - he didn't appreciate being used as a pawn for torture, and he had only just managed to bite his way out of the tangled trap that he'd been tied into.]

A blur of grey streaked across the chaos before either of the humans could react, and Amy heard the yell erupt from her throat before she consciously formulated it.

"DAN, THE CAT - "


End file.
